Improving Reporting to Prevent Hate Act of 2025
Sponsored By: Representative Beyer, Donald S. [D-VA-8]
Introduced
Summary
Ties federal grants to credible local hate-crime reporting. This bill would require the Attorney General to judge whether larger local governments credibly report hate crimes to the FBI and bar grant allocations for those that fail, while allowing a certification exemption for jurisdictions that carry out significant public education and reporting reforms.
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- Covered local governments: A "covered jurisdiction" is a unit of local government with a population over 100,000 that requests relevant grants. If a jurisdiction is found not to credibly report hate crimes it would be ineligible for allocations under the amended grant subpart.
- Communities and victims: Jurisdictions may avoid the penalty by certifying they have done substantial public education and either improved reporting systems and policies or created specialized units and ongoing public forums. That pathway aims to increase awareness, victim services information, and more complete data.
- Department of Justice duties: The Attorney General would have to develop an evaluation method using data from the Hate Crimes Statistics Act within three years and publish an annual DOJ report listing jurisdictions certified for the exception.
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Bill Overview
Analyzed Economic Effects
2 provisions identified: 1 benefits, 1 costs, 0 mixed.
Education efforts could protect local grants
A jurisdiction that fails the reporting check could keep its grant eligibility if the Attorney General certifies major public education and awareness work on hate crimes. One path would require progress toward full reporting, a formal policy, and a system to send data to the FBI’s incident-based reporting system. Another path would require either a specialized hate-crime unit or liaison, or regular public meetings and forums on impacts, victim services, and laws. Each year, DOJ would post a list of certified jurisdictions on its website.
Grants tied to credible hate-crime reporting
Beginning no later than three years after enactment, the Attorney General would check local hate-crime reporting each year. The check would use data collected under the Hate Crimes Statistics Act. DOJ would flag when a covered jurisdiction failed to report or reported zero incidents to the FBI. If a jurisdiction does not credibly report, it would lose eligibility for these Section 505 grant allocations. This would apply only to local governments that request these grants and have over 100,000 people. For this program, hate crimes would include acts listed in the Hate Crime Statistics Act and violations of 18 U.S.C. 241, 245, 247, or 249.
Sponsors & CoSponsors
Sponsor
Beyer, Donald S. [D-VA-8]
VA • D
Cosponsors
Rep. Bacon, Don [R-NE-2]
NE • R
Sponsored 4/2/2025
Rep. Fitzpatrick, Brian K. [R-PA-1]
PA • R
Sponsored 4/21/2025
Rep. Chu, Judy [D-CA-28]
CA • D
Sponsored 4/21/2025
Rep. Suozzi, Thomas R. [D-NY-3]
NY • D
Sponsored 9/23/2025
Rep. Kim, Young [R-CA-40]
CA • R
Sponsored 9/23/2025
Roll Call Votes
No roll call votes available for this bill.
View on Congress.gov